Following on from the headmaster who wanted to give himself 12 months holiday we have the school that considered that they might allow a few children across the threshold but only under certain conditions, a long list of them. The children would be allowed a period of exercise, but each one within a large hoop placed on the ground, suitably spaced out of course. “You may run on the spot in your hoop, hop on one leg, jump up and down and lie down as long as your feet stay within your hoop”. Then each child will be given a specific time to go to the toilet and is forbidden to go at any other time. These are five year olds of course. If any child wets themselves (or worse) as a result or cuts themselves they have to clear up the mess or bandage the injury themselves as the teachers will not come within two metres of the children under any circumstances. If necessary the parent will be summoned to deal with the mess and the child wait miserably for as long as it takes for the parent to get there. Sorry. one exception, if a child is actually physically sick, vomits to be precise. a member of staff will put on full PPE clothing and will approach the child with caution. I imagine the sight of an approaching person in full gear, head mask and all looking like something out of Star Wars will drive most five year olds into hysterics. And so on. This lengthy list of rules was communicated to parents and apparently the school was amazed that it did not go down very well!

Can you top that? Oh yes easily. The teaching unions having firstly told their members that under no circumstances were they to go back to their jobs as it was far too dangerous for them (and as an afterthought possibly the children) then found that a sizeable body of opinion, including a number of previous Ministers of Education from both Conservative and Labour parties, were telling them to get back into school. So to be helpful they then published a lengthy pamphlet (more like a book really) giving instructions of a multitude of questions that teachers should ask about safety and every other matter under the sun. Only if they received assurances that every single one of their demands could and would be met should they “consider” the possibility of returning to work. Note we are talking about getting a few children in, not the whole lot together.

What is it about teaching that is so much more incredibly dangerous than hospital work or care home work, or supermarket checkout work? Is it that teachers are much more delicate and fragile beings than the rest of humanity?

There is a simple message for teachers – get on and do your job or get another job if it is too onerous and too dangerous. And those teachers who do want to do the job should get back into school and ignore those creatures who have grabbed control of power of the unions.

And just to top it the latest edict from the largest teaching union to its members – if by some ill chance you end up actually dealing with children, on no account must you mark their work as handling any books is far too dangerous! If you wrote it in a novel it would be dismissed as fantasy.

To rewrite the election slogan “Education isn’t Working”,